"This is the best rain we've had yet!" Cedar yelled.
It was pleasant being not too cold or windy. It started to clear a bit and we were happy to be headed to Buffalo to see our friend Christy.
"Don't go to Buffalo!" a bicyclist headed in the other direction warned. "It was horrible and you should do everything possible to avoid it." If only we knew what was to come. We disregarded his advice and pressed on.
I was in the lead and just after heading through a light, I saw the tracks. It took a second for it to register that they were at the most horrible angle possible. I couldn't go into traffic to cross them at a right angle and the second rail sucked in my front tire. I was thrown off onto those large rocks often by railroad tracks. Yeow! I had the wind knocked out of me and it took a while before I could talk. I just held my arm because I knew it took the biggest hit in the fall. Kind drivers stopped to make sure that I was alright and it took us quite a while to get all of the cuts and scrapes cleaned up. I was sprawled out on the ground for at least 10 minutes before I could move. My shoe was even thrown off from the impact. Weird. Cedar was fine and I learned that I really do catch the full force of any impact. Nothing was broken and we proceeded on to Buffalo, deciding to take a shorter route because of my injuries.
After riding for a while we stopped for lunch. About to hit the road I stopped because something wasn't feeling right. A flat tire! I'm sure it was from the crash and at least we had a covered place to fix it. Finally we were off.
Only 10 minutes down the road we were pelted by rain and surrounded by thunder and lightning. "Are you sure that this isn't hail," Cedar asked?
"No, it's not hail. Pretend it is a massage for our sore leg muscles," I responded. A gust of wind hit us from the side and we knew that we had to pull over. We stopped at the first house with a covered porch and knocked at the door. No one was home but we stayed under cover while the storm passed.
On the road once more we headed to the bicycle paths that run through Buffalo. An hour later, I had another flat on the front tire. It was a slow leak and we had used our spare tube to fix the flat earlier. We just wanted to get to a warm dry place so we stopped every 5 miles to pump it up. The trail took us through some very industrial areas and the signs weren't great so we stopped every so often to call and check directions. We were on the right path only 3 miles from Christy's home when I had to stop. Another flat. We were in an isolated part of town and wanted to get out of there before dark. We pumped it up and walked as fast as we could. Christy met us at a nearby grocery store and we figured out a plan to get everything to her house, now only 2 miles away. Cord and Zion left to ride their bikes to her house and were going to drive back to help carry our tandem to the house. This was at 8:30 at night and Cedar and I waited and waited. It was 9:00, 9:15, and at 9:30 they returned. Cord had gotten a flat on the way to Christy's house and fixed it. It was a staple, fully seated in his tire. That finished our day of flats and today we bought new tires for the tandem and tubes that are puncture resistant. We hope to never break that record and think that Buffalo could do with a clean up day on their bike paths.
I am very sore and bruised. My knees are both infected and painful so I have spent the day cleaning them. One shoulder is swollen and the other is difficult to move. I think another good nights rest will help and we will head out tomorrow. It will be a better day.
On a more positive note, we were greeted with a great meal that Adjoa prepared and were very glad to be in their lovely home. We took over for the day, replacing and fixing tires, cleaning chains, doing laundry and baking snacks for our ride. Is that really a day off?
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